boys of class

7/29/2019 Boys of Class

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Boys of Class, Boys of Color: Negotiating the Academic and Social Geography of

an Elite Independent School

Peter Kuriloff, Ed.D.

University of Pennsylvania

Michael C. Reichert, Ph.D.

Center for the Study of Boys and Girls Lives

Haverford, PA

Authors Note

We wish to thank The Haverford School (THS) and its Head, Dr. Joseph Cox and

Assistant Head, Mr. Mark Thorburn, for their support of this research. THS has

used it to engage in continuous reflection and change. What we describe in this

paper,therefore, is a moment in time. We are also grateful for the helpful

feedback we received from Professors Mort Botel, Art Dole and Joan Goodman,and Drs. Dan McGrath, Norman Newberg and Richard Parker. Finally, we are

grateful to our Research Assistants, Dr. Robert Zeitlin, Ms. Lauren Scher and Ms.

Laura Boniello, who helped us in many aspects of the research process. Requests

for reprints should be addressed to Peter Kuriloff, Graduate School of Education,

3700 Walnut St., Phila. PA. 19104-6216.

Note for quotation or citation without the written permission of the senior

author.In press, Journal of Social Issues.

Abstract

How do boys from diverse backgrounds manage in an elite boys school?

Interviewing a representative sample of 27 boys, blocked for race, class and

academic performance, we found that they navigated the schools academic

geography by mastering "a drill" that included hard work, unwavering

commitment, a will to win, a cool style and self knowledge as learners. Some

developed a transformative love of learning. But many marginalized boys

struggled with the schools social geography. African American boys managed

most effectively as they developed intra-group discourses of race and class

enabling them to take up the schools offers of "hegemonic habitus" without

"selling out". We discuss the liberating implications of helping students in bothindependent and public schools develop similar critiques.

Independent School

Elite preparatory schools have played a unique role in preparing boys for power.

Until World War II, graduation from a handful of schools was enough to

guarantee boys entrance into the best private colleges and universities. Even as

the social revolution of the 1960s propelled most of these schools toward co-

education and greater socioeconomic and racial diversity, they continue to play a

disproportionate role in educating future members of the power elite. For

example, as late as the 1980s, fully 12% of the senior managers of a very largesample of the nations major companies had graduated from 16 top boarding


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schools (Useem & Karabel, 1986). Other studies have shown similar

disproportionate representation of upper class men and graduates of top private

schools among partners in elite Wall Street law firms (Smigel, 1964) and in high

level, federal service (Mintz, 1975; Prescott, 1970).

Clearly, attendance at elite private schools has privileged mens careers. WhileWhite upper class parents have always taken advantage of this, the schools

push to diversify has enabled numbers of working class parents and parents of

color to enroll their children in an effort to advantage them. By the 1980s,

approximately 15% of elite boarding school students were working class or poor

and while about 10% were students of color, only about 4% were African

American (Cookson & Persell, 1985). What is it like for these children to

negotiate their way through such schools? What does it take for them to survive?

How do they both manage to survive and succeed in contexts that privilege

upper class values, knowledge, speech, and writing? How does their experience

contrast with that of upper class boys? What do these contrasting experiencestell us about the nature of these schools and the construction of academic and

social success within them? And, more broadly, what can we learn from them

that might inform the ways in which we struggle to educate students in schools

generally?

To begin to answer these questions, we conducted a qualitative study of boys

attending one elite boys school. To frame our study, it is important first to

describe the central elements that have characterized the educational

philosophies of elite American private schools in general and this school in

particular.

The Historical Character of Elite Private Schools

American preparatory schools originated in boarding academies founded in New

England to prepare boys for college while shaping them into a Puritan, moral

elect (Sizer, 1964). Their numbers grew rapidly in the half-century between 1880

and 1929 when they served primarily "old stock," upper class Protestants, while

also assimilating the sons of new, Protestant tycoons (Baltzell, 1989). These

schools gradually became the model for a set of elite day schools, first also for

boys and then, more recently, for girls. Increasing numbers of parents, aware of

ever-growing competition for entrance to prestigious colleges (Frank & Cook,1995), choose to send their children to such schools in order to help them

succeed. What are they actually buying when they make this choice?

Consciously or unconsciously, often parents are hoping for training in the habits

of success they believe such schools uniquely offer. The term "hegemonic [or

dominant] cultural capital" reflects deeply embedded values, skills, language

codes, dispositions, tastes and knowledge that are taken for granted as

representing the "best" by dominant classes, by schools and by many parents

(Foley, 1990; Bourdieu, 1984). Elite independent schools embody such capital in

their impressive faculty and facilities, their demanding curricula, and their

capacity to first attract and then to develop students with privileged habits ofmind and heart. In the process of negotiating these curricula, elite schools


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believe students will develop these habits as central elements of their character.

Their character also is shaped by an explicit regime designed to foster particular

forms of identity, and in the case of many of these schools, a particular form of

masculinity.

From the beginnings of elite private schools, boys were expected to develop acool, "no sweat" style that suggested their achievements were effortless. They

were expected to be "in control," to show physical courage and to disregard

physical pain (provided by cold showers, long, regulated hours and the cane)

(Cookson & Persell, 1985; Gathorne-Hardy, 1978). As formal athletics developed,

they were incorporated into this ethos, underscoring the schools emphasis on

competition and its requirements: fearlessness, speed, strength, endurance,

teamwork and uncommon commitment to victory (Cookson & Persell, 1985).

Bourdieu (1993) called such sets of qualities "habitus." He argued that because

there is" an astonishingly close correspondence" between positions and

dispositions, between the social characteristics of "posts, and the social

characteristics of the agents who fill them" (1993, p. 64), the habitus of the

ruling classes helps to explain the enduring intergenerational stability of wealth

and privilege. Thus, according to Bourdieu, boys and girls who share a common

habitus are most frequently chosen for the top schools (or for the top track in

schools), and then seem to encourage and challenge each other once they enter

the competitive world of education. The habitus that they carry into their

schools, is the result of a long process of inculcation, beginning in early

childhood, which becomes a "second sense" or "second nature"(1993, p. 5) but is

then, in turn, honed and shaped by schools.

We are left to wonder how marginal groups of students, recruited to such schools

relatively recently, have fared. We also wonder what the impact of their

presence has been on upper and upper-middle class boys who, until now, have

enjoyed undisputed ownership of these schools. In this study, we were interested

in finding out how different groups of boys managed at one elite school where

the dominant cultural capital continues to define the core of the schools

practices and where students are expected to have and hone the habitus of the

ruling classes.

Method

We conducted our study at The Haverford School (THS), a junior kindergarten

through 12th grade, boys day school, founded in 1884 and located in a wealthy

suburb of Philadelphia . THSs mission statement says it is a college preparatory

school designed to provide "superior liberal arts education" to boys from

different backgrounds. It stresses the importance of creating a challenging and

supportive environment, that sets "high standards, of character and conduct" in

order to develop each students "full intellectual, moral, social, artistic, athletic

and creative potential." In its "Statement of Vision," the school says it strives to

be nothing less than" the premier independent school for boys" while developing

a community to foster"high achievement in academics, athletics and the arts."(www.haverford.org, 2-23-01 ).


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THSs mission and vision are realized through long-standing traditions, many of

which reflect those of the British-style, private boarding schools it originally

emulated. Beginning in the 6th grade, boys wear ties and blazers. They take a

very rigorous college prep curriculum that includes more than 15 hours of

homework a week. All middle and upper school students are required to

participate in interscholastic sports, within the areas most competitive league.From entrance, boys are told how good the school is, how lucky they are to be

attending, and how, if they honor the privilege they are being given with

diligence, hard work, focus and competitive zeal, they can be confident of a

place in a fine college and later success in life. In short, THS has a very clear

vision of what kind of young man it is trying to mold, as well as a variety of time-

tested methods for doing it. How do boys manage under this regime?

In order to find out, we conducted hour-long interviews with 16 boys from 1999-

2000 as part of a larger, quantitative study examining the relationship between

achievement and the way boys co-construct their identities at THS (Reichert &Kuriloff, in preparation). As one of us (Reichert) was the schools consulting

psychologist, he had well-established reputation among the boys, so it was

relatively easy to recruit them for interviews. We also included interviews of 11

young men from an earlier study who had graduated from the school and were

currently in college (Reichert, 2000). Our sample included boys from each grade

as well as graduates, blocked for race, class, ethnicity and achievement level

(upper and lower quartile and middle half). This sampling strategy enabled us to

interview boys for whom THS was like a multi-generational home, as well as boys

from the upper-middle and middle classes and boys from its socio-economic,

ethnic and racial margins.

In particular, for White boys: in the bottom quartile, 1 was upper class, 2 were

upper-middle class and 5 were working class; in the middle 2 quartiles, 1 was

upper class, 2 were upper-middle class and 3 were working class; and in the top

quartile, 1 was upper class and 2 were working class. Among African American

boys: in the bottom quartile, 1 was middle class and 3 were poor; in the middle

quartiles, 1 was upper-middle class and 1 was poor; and in the upper quartile, 1

was upper-middle class and 1 was poor. Finally, the 2 non-WASP boys, one

Jewish and one Pakistani, were upper middle class and in the top quartile of their

class.

In conducting the interviews, we followed a protocol that asked boys to describe

themselves as learners, their understandings of their parents attitudes about

learning and their view of the school s approach to teaching and learning. We

asked them to contextualize these thoughts by explaining their views about the

varieties of social identities within the school and how they saw such differences

reflected within both the schools academic and social hierarchies. We recorded

and transcribed all interviews. The 3 primary members of the research team,

first individually, then collectively, coded sample interviews for emerging

themes. We used these to develop a preliminary coding tree and, assisted by the

qualitative analysis software program QSR NUD.IST, Version 4.0 (Richards &Richards, 1997), used it to code all sentences of every interview. This coding was


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conducted, first individually and then by the authors and our research assistant.

We compared, discussed and resolved differences among us. After practice, we

agreed over 90% of the time. Reviewing our results, we then refined our

categories into a set of themes that best captured what the boys had told us

about their experiences. NUD.IST enabled us to regroup the sentences to capture

all the data related to these themes.

Results

Buying In: THS Boys Believe in the Vision Universally, the boys we talked to

believe in the quality of the school. From the most upper class "Lifer" (student

parlance for boys who had attended since pre-K and for boys from prominent

families), to the poorest "Recruit" (student parlance for boys who joined THS in

9th grade), boys constantly compared THS with other schools, reinforcing their

sense of luck, opportunity and privilege. Ward, a twelfth grade, upper class,

fourth generation Lifer, was very detailed in his appraisal of the school,

contrasting it with his local, highly regarded public high school: "There are a lot

of differences: people dont wear coats and ties there; teachers care here; kids

pay attention in class; people dont make out in the hallways; everyones

smarter; its just a smarter environment - the teachers are much more open to

thought here."

While Wards perceptions were based on his casual acquaintance with a few

public school students and largely reflect his stereotypes, the perceptions of the

Recruits were based on first hand experience. These boys had been in the public

schools and maintained relationships with many of their old friends. Daniel, a

junior Recruit from a very poor African American family living in Philadelphia,compared THS to his crumbling, chronically under-funded public school options.

In his comments, we catch a glimpse of the political theory he was developing

that differences are a result of how the schools are situated ("advertised") and of

the fact that impoverished inner city schools are designed to prevent the kind of

learning THS offers.

This school is so much better than the other schools - [K]ids at Absalom or

Bendel, which is where most of the kids I hang out with go to - they are just not

taught the same things we are taught here. Theyre just not allowed to learn [our

emphasis] the same things we learn here because they are just not, it is just notadvertised the same way.

What the Boys Buy: The Good, the Bad and the Ugly

Academic Geography: The Good

More than any of the schools within the boys frame of reference, THS openly

prides itself on conveying privileged cultural capital and developing within boys

an elite habitus. As the boys learn to navigate the curriculum, they develop a

remarkable consensus about the implicit skills it takes to succeed. Here, there

were many fewer differences of perception by class, race or ethnicity than those

we describe below when we discuss how boys talked about the social geography


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the material,thats the right amount. More than that, I just get overwhelmed and

I dont remember anything. Less than that I miss a lot of key information.

But developing an understanding of oneself as a learner was not enough.

Students also told us how they had to get organized in order to learn. To

accomplish this, they developed strategies ranging from making timelines oftheir work, to keeping daily and weekly "to do" lists, to using study halls

efficiently, to studying instead of sleeping on the long bus ride home.

Maintaining balance. Yet, despite developing focus, knowledge of self as a

learner and good organizational habits, students still often faced a combination

of sometimes overwhelming and highly competitive extra-curricular and study

demands, and sometimes experienced setbacks. To manage these, boys found

ways of keeping things in perspective, encouraging themselves in the face of

grades that were lower than other boys, so that they could persist. Tyler, a White

middle class junior, exemplified the way many students managed such feedback

by establishing a sense of life priorities:

I always did enough that I was doing well. I am just interested in more things

than just schoolwork, sports after school, or just working out. [If] I had the

opportunity to go play golf with my Dad and I knew that I was going to take 3

hours away from my homework, I would probably do it because, I would rather

have that enjoyment.

Tyler felt such balance helped him meet the demanding pace set by the school

without being overwhelmed.

Other boys adopted a developmental perspective to help them manage negative

feedback. Antonios personal narrative sustained him as he grappled with THSs

rigorous demands:

When I was younger...If I had a test, it was a struggle just to spend the 3 hours

studyingbecause there was no real sense of anything... [Now] I am more

mature. I have a better sense of what it means to learn something When I was

younger I was all about getting the good grades... [Now] I wanted to learn stuff

and actually understand it.

Here, Antonio captures his own growing awareness of himself as a learner butalso as someone who differentiates between being a learner and being someone

who merely gets good grades. In this way he exemplifies the powerful

contribution the school makes as different boys develop a common love of

learning.

Intrinsic Motivation: Learning as Transformational. In the end, what boys from

every class and race told us was that they came to take pleasure in the

intellectual work of the school. This work, in turn, involved acquiring habits of

mind and style embedded in the schools curriculum and culture and proved

transformative for some boys, especially for African American boys. Rahim, a

highly motivated Black senior from a very poor, disorganized family, who was


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The Center: The Bad

Upper class boys were clear about both its high status and the kinds of boys who

embodied that status. Cal, a popular and accomplished, middle class White

senior, characterized the school this way: "There is [an] undercurrent of elitism

here, a proposition that a lot of people think about, whether they are actuallytelling you or doing other things to show you, that they think Haverford is just

better than other places." Ward was a self-nominated cheerleader for the school

who had taken to wearing its colors every day. He spoke for other upper class

peers, though perhaps more directly than they would have, when he

characterized the kind of boy who embodied the values that made the school

"the best."

As far as the school life is concerned, the group of kids who are the movers and

shakers, the guys that do everything are my group of friends. Harry is a buddy

who does the yearbook. I did the pep rally. A couple of my other friends are in

the Signet Society or Student Council. Sam is the class president. All buddies of

mine, people that we see on the weekends.

In this quote, Ward indicates not only that the leadership of the student body is

made up of his upper class friends, but also that they form a relatively tightly

knit group that socializes together. When we asked Ward to help us understand

the view of many students that the school overlooked and under-appreciated

boys with backgrounds that were atypical of the schools tradition, he offered

this view of how boys at the center perceive boys from different social positions:

[T]here are a lot of people in the school who are not "who they are." I mean,aside from maybe the fact that I am not wearing a tie, I am the same guy in

school as out of school. There are a lot of people who are not and thats not

something that anyone respects or likes. So, a lot of people who dont have the

background, who dont live in the big house, often feel threatened. I dont know

if its everybody being White or everyone being rich, or whatever it is. Its not

something theyre comfortable with, so, not always but often, they feel the need

to put up a front, its usually defensive, they need to put forth a persona that

they think will either protect them or make them fit in.

The Margins: The Ugly

Boys who occupied the margins were Caucasians from blue-collar families,

African Americans from families of every social class, and other non-WASP boys,

including other boys of color and Jews. These boys did not feel the kind of ease

Ward experienced. Each described unique problems navigating THSs social

geography as well as unique ways of solving them.

White blue collar boys: Experiencing without developing a collaborative

discourse of class. While these boys agreed with Ward that there were clear

social groups in the school, they saw them almost entirely as a function of

money. John, a junior from a nearby working class neighborhood, asked if he

could describe the cliques in the school said: "Yeah, rich people, non-rich people


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and other people." All of these boys told us, in one way or another, that the

school deliberately or unconsciously privileged its wealthy students and that they

in turn often excluded poorer students, acted insensitively towards them or

simply failed to see them.

The White, working class boys we interviewed thought the school handed outawards in a way that was prejudiced. John told us: "Yeah, there are awards. It is

so obvious who is going to get them. I could put $10 down on who is going to get

the next award and win." Larry, a junior from another nearby working class

neighborhood, added: "Its pretty sad when you can pick out (this is really when I

get sick), out of how many students there are here, who is going to get it [the

award]."

These boys also encountered lowered expectations that they experienced as

prejudice. John associated this with the same type of stereotyping experienced

by Blacks:

People never felt I was a good match for the school. At first everyone thought I

was some dumb punk, or something like that, because I could kick a soccer ball.

Why do they think Black people are lazy? Its just a stereotype.

John told us about many instances of stereotypes he encountered among both

other students and faculty. One example illustrated how the stereotypic

assumptions of people at the center revealed his invisibility:

Ill give you an example of a typical attitude. The other day, this teacher was

talking about a character of a book, he said something like, "You got this guy

whos got, like, a mechanic mouth." And I was about to walk out because my

Moms fianc is a mechanic.

However the boys explained the motives of the "center," they all developed ways

to cope with it. Some addressed the issue directly (with more or less success) by

trying to explain their situation to fellow students. Larry explained: "You get into

arguments with kids. I can never really make them understand how there is a

difference." Other boys tried to assimilate. Alex, just out of college when

interviewed, entered THS as a Recruit from a Catholic grade school and by the

time he graduated was at the top of his class both academically, and by some

measures, socially. At the beginning of the career, he discovered Lifers calledboys from Catholic schools, "Vinnies:". I am and half the other kids I came in

with, are as Irish American as you are going to get, and we were labeled

"Vinnies" because everyone thought we were coming from these hard-core Irish

or Italian backgrounds."

Responding to such stereotypes, Alex determined to win the contest for

recognition. At graduation, he was presented with the schools top honor, the

"Key Man" award to the boy who excels most academically, athletically and

socially. But Alex seemed quite aware of its price. To boys of the center, Alex

was still a "Vinnie," though now reformed. He told us with some irony:


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But by the end of my time here a Lifer dubbed me the "Reformed Vinnie," so,

even to the point where I can joke about it, I came here knowing I wasnt a

preppy kid and I left here in khaki pants and argyle socks and so, yeah, it was a

conversion experience for me.

Still other working class boys, like Mark, a senior, tried to hide the differencesbetween his family and those of the more privileged boys: "Well, like, I come

from a family that doesnt have a lot of money and unless I get to be really,

really good friends with someone, I dont tell them. I like to make it look like I

kind of fit in with the other kids at Haverford" In such boys efforts to "pass"

there is a kind of naive focus on markers of wealth to the exclusion of other

markers like language, style and a sense of assumed privilege that, absent

discourses of class, they fail to see. Perhaps it was this failure that Ward picked

up when he ungraciously complained about boys who were not "real." A boy of

color and a Jewish boy had similar struggles trying to adapt as well as similar

experiences of feeling invisible, voiceless and marginalized. But they also felt theadded burden of racial prejudice.

Other boys from the margins: Experiencing without developing a collaborative

discourse of difference. These boys come from upper-middle class families but

because of their color, religion and ethnicity felt like outsiders. Individually, they

framed their issues in terms of race and prejudice, but there appeared to be little

discussion among them about their experiences. They did not describe shared

understandings of racism or classism as societal phenomena. Lacking such

understandings, they tended to internalize their negative experiences.

Aftab, a junior whose parents were affluent but who were immigrants fromPakistan, described boys at the center this way: "Whenever you think of

Haverford, you think of that upper-middle class, White kid who lives on the Main

Line , whos got all the luxuries he could want. Hes got basically an easy life"

Aftab told us how he had encountered racism in the lower school when another

child referred to his color in a derogatory fashion. As he got older, he

experienced a continued lack of acceptance: "I feel that I am just as good as they

are, but they automatically, when they seem me off in the distance see a brown

kid they tend not to want to associate with that kid." But Aftab was not free of

stereotypes himself: "I would tend to go to the White kid first because maybe he

is more educated; hes got more money."

Aftabs barely disguised struggle with self-loathing is reflected in the way

another non-WASP boy talked. Jacob, a sophomore from an affluent family but

one of the few Jewish boys in the school, told us: "I dont see very much anti-

Semitism I do see jokes, but theyre all in fun." But then he went on to say:

"Like the other day, we were talking about [a fancy store], and I said: "Oh, that

place is expensive" and they yelled, "Jew", its sort of funny. They always make

fun of my big nose, all the time, being Jewish" While Jacob minimized these

"jokes," for other Jews, they resonate down the long, bleak history of anti-

Semitism. Absent shared discourses of difference, these boys found they had to


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nature to them." - it was evident he had come to understand how the school

embodied hegemonic cultural capital. Once they had realized this, he and Rahim

consciously decided to emulate the successful students, watching the way they

engaged and borrowing from them:

Excuse the expression, they learn how to BS, and they are like pros at it. In class,they raise their hand and they say something, and I am trying to figure what in

the heck theyre talking about - its so far out - The next thing I know, the teacher

is saying, "Thats a good point." So here at Haverford they teach you how to say

some BS and then back it up. I think that is very great, very useful. Rahim and I

call this school BS Prep.

In a separate interview, Rahim extended this theme beyond academics to

include emotional competence:

Me and Harold call [this school] "Bullshit Prep," because it prepares you for all

the bullshit in the world. Its the small stuff, but it is going to translate into reallife and if you learn to deal with stuff here, then you will be fine once you get out

- little things - like I have to learn to control my mouth and my temper.

As Harold and Rahim bonded together, the framework they developed for

understanding key parts of THSs hidden curriculum enabled them to better

control what formerly simply had happened to them. In an explicit way they

worked to acquire both the cultural capital and the habitus that more privileged

boys just took for granted. In a sad irony, what appeared to sustain them and

other African American boys in this endeavor was the inspiration they found in

the very curriculum that poor, working class and African American students arealienated from in public schools (Delpit, 1995; MacLeod, 1990; Willis, 1981). We

have already described Rahims liberating discovery while reading Master

Harold. Other boys told similar stories. In one very poignant account, Matthew

illustrated how reading a group of Black writers during a literature class had

enabled him to imagine both an empowered masculinity and an alternative

future for himself:

They seem like such great people. They seem like they have everything going for

them Its intellectual power. Its the power that when people listen to [them],

that when people look at them, they look at them with respect. I just see the

ideal idea of manhood inside of them - thats the way I want to be.

Taken together then, these interviews suggest that Haverfords African American

boys have created the collective power to see, name and discuss race and class

issues. This has given them both voice and a stronger purchase on the slippery

social terrain of the school than other marginal students whose individualized

strategies have been to attempt to assimilate or simply "wait it out," graduate

and move on. By developing a critique, the African American boys also have

been able to understand central aspects of THSs hidden curriculum and to see

its relationship to the world of privilege. This meta-view allowed them to

embrace the schools offer of privileged cultural capital and to begin to develop


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through imitation and self-conscious study a hegemonic habitus. And, it helped

them do this without feeling as if they were selling out.

Discussion

Where the School Succeeds: Lessons of PrivilegeWhat does all this suggest about the organization of elite independent schools

like Haverford, and more broadly, about the possibilities for schools in general? It

is very clear from our interviews that THS privileges all of its boys in several

important ways. Despite a few teachers who had lower expectations for Recruits,

there is a widely held belief that every matriculated student has the ability to

succeed by dint of his own efforts. The discourses of "ability" so common in

public schools, colleges and the public at large have been replaced by discourses

of "learning the drill" and the value of a strong work ethic. As a result, unlike

public schools, students are not placed into curricular tracks highly correlated

with race and class. And, unlike many colleges, we found little evidence of thedebilitating discourses of affirmative action that derogate all African Americans

and many recruited athletes. Further, the school holds all boys to very high

standards. It has an explicit, unabashed regime that expresses those standards

by valuing academic cultural capital and the acquisition of a hegemonic habitus.

Marginal boys did notice that the schools higher rewards too predictably were

going to boys of the center and were somewhat cynical and embittered by their

experience of this contradiction. Yet that was clearly less important to them than

their recognition of the value of the high standards the school held them to and

the power of its demanding curriculum.

Moreover, THS teaches a hegemonic masculinity that, while restrictive in some

ways, is liberating in others. Anderson (1999) has detailed the ways in which

poor African American boys must narrow and focus their identities at the cost of

learning in order to cope with what he terms "the code of the street." Ferguson

(2000) describes how such "bad boy" identities also are constructed in schools.

And, Willis (1981) and MacLeod (1990) painfully detail how working class

masculinities are crafted in ways that exclude school learning as a manly

activity. Haverford embraces a masculinity that includes among its virtues honor,

courage, teamwork, sacrifice, a strong inquiring intellect, and a genuine

appreciation for the life of the mind. At this school, being strong and beingintellectual are mutually supportive, not mutually exclusive.

Where the School Fails: Lessons Learned from the Center and the Margins

The costs to working class White boys at THS were the clearest. Absent a class

critique, they bought into the individualistic aspects of the schools meritocracy,

blaming themselves for their academic and social shortcomings and feeling

inadequate. Even when they became frustrated and angry at the insensitivities

of their more privileged peers, their own lack of a critique and the absences of

discourses of class within the school made it hard for them to put their

experience into perspective, to "denature it" by understanding it in broaderterms and to frame effective arguments when trying to explain their experience


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way the African American boys we interviewed made meaning of their

experience in the school and then devised strategies to take advantage of the

best of what it has to offer. These boys were fortunate because, somewhat

isolated racially and thrown together by class, they were able to learn much from

intra-group, cross class discussions.

This did not happen for White Recruits or other marginal boys. Tracking and

neighborhood school policies make it equally unlikely for public school children.

This brings us to the most radical implication of our findings. For, taken together,

they suggest schools, both private and public, can play a much more powerful

role educating children by helping them actively explore their schools particular

social and academic geographies. Such "geography lessons" would include

helping students actively interrogate each schools particular "drills." Drills in

urban and suburban schools differ dramatically from each other and from elite

private schools. Students could study these differences and work towards

understanding their long-term implications. Such study now takes place incollege in a variety of courses within departments ranging from sociology to

feminist studies. Enabling students to develop such a critical stance towards

their own education may help many more of them to begin to acquire hegemonic

cultural capital and an elite habitus before reaching college.

References

Anderson, E. (1999). The code of the street: Decency, violence, and the moral

life of the inner city. New York : W. W. Norton.

Baltzell, E. D. (1989). Philadelphia gentleman: The making of a national upperclass. Chicago : Quadrangle Books.

Bourdieu, P. (1984). Distinction: A social class critique of the judgment of taste.

London : Routledge and Kegan Paul.

Bourdieu, P. (1993). The field of cultural production: Essays on art and literature.

New York : Columbia University Press.

Cookson, P. W. Jr., & Persell, C. H. (1985). Preparing for power: Americas elite

boarding schools. New York : Basic Books.

Collins, M., & Tamarkin, C. (1982). Marva Collins way. New York :

Tarcher/Putnam.

Delpit, L. (1995). Other peoples children: Cultural conflict in the classroom. New

York : The New Press.

Frank, R.H., & Cook, P.J. (1995). The winner-take-all society. New York : Free

Press.

Foley, D. E. (1990). Learning capitalist culture. Philadelphia : University of

Pennsylvania Press.


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